Rise of the Tyrant Lord
by Zauber
Summary: When the Goblet of Fire spits out his name and his best friends abandon him, Harry feels alone. That is, until he discovers an ancient familiar summoning ritual. Using it calls into being something utterly alien, something called... Tyranid! Now Harry finds himself the overmind of the swarm, struggling to find his way and survive against the very wizards he is trying to protect.
1. Spawning the Swarm

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, and the rest is mine, although inspired by the works of Games Workshop (Tyranids), Blizzard (Zerg), Jim Butcher (Vord), and probably a bunch of people I forget.

**Intro: Story begins the morning of November 23, the day after Harry is shown the dragons by Hagrid. Inspired by Harry Potter and the Swarm by Beyogi, but I'm basing my swarm more on Tyranids than Zerg. Heavily modified though, to the point where I don't think this even counts as a crossover. Case in point: There is NO Warp in the Potterverse. I will assume zero knowledge of tyranids, and although I'll be using some base creatures (ripper swarms, genestealers, 'gaunts, etc) they will be modified, so don't assume they are the same.**

**Chapter 1**

**Spawning the Swarm**

"No Harry! I'm sorry, I just can't take it any more." Hermione said, before turning and rushing away, leaving Harry in shock. _What was that about?_ Harry wondered briefly, before being brought back to himself by the mocking laughter of a nearby gaggle of girls. Flushing, Harry jolted forward and rushed out the portrait hole, determined to catch up with Hermione and find out what had happened to make his only friend abandon him.

Emerging into the corridor, Harry looked around and couldn't see any trace of her. His shoulders slumped with defeat, Harry turned and began to trudge away.

"Hey, Harry?" a voice called behind him. Harry turned, and saw that Neville had come out behind him. "You're not going to breakfast?"

"No, don't feel like it Neville." Harry replied. The smaller boy smiled vaguely at him, then left in the direction of the great hall. Harry resumed his wandering.

_Great. Everyone abandons me. All alone..._" Deep in thought, Harry found his way to an uninhabited section of the castle, where he paced back and forth, brooding. _God, I wish I had someone, anyone, I could trust! I wish I had someone who would never abandon me... Someone I could always count on... Someone who would put my needs first for a change... Although really, I'd settle for some **thing** at this point!_ Harry thought with a chuckle.

"Merlin! Where did that come from?" Harry exclaimed, seeing a door appear suddenly in the wall in front of which he had been pacing. Bored with brooding, Harry shrugs and opens the door.

Behind the door is a small room, with plain, unadorned grey stone walls, entirely empty except for an ornate diagram painted on the floor, at the centre of which sat a book.

Harry picked up the book. A slim volume, bound in brown leather, the title of the book was embossed in raised gold lettering on the front. "The Familiar Way, or, the Path of Forking Gardens". Harry read, curiosity driving him to open it. The letters within seemed to swim and writhe before him, making his eyes water, before settling into recognizable shapes.

Harry read the first page, then, with mounting excitement, the first chapter, and then before he knew it an hour had passed and he was still standing in the bare, cold room, feet aching, cradling in his hands what he knew was the answer to all of his problems.

Forgetting the dragon that awaited him in the forest, forgetting the shade of Voldemort that plotted against him even now, forgetting even the Herbology class he was supposed to be attending, Harry read. Once, twice, again, until the words were burned into his memory, and he felt as if the incantation was pressing at his lips.

Gently placing the book on the ground beside him, Harry stepped to the edge of the carefully drawn diagram on the floor. Raising his wand, he began to chant, calling aloud the words of magic, the alien speech of an ancient tongue bursting forth from his mouth like a cresting wave.

Around him, the magic built; shimmers of energy filling the air with colours, radiant spikes lashing out, as the space before him twisted and warped. He could feel his magic reaching out, out, far beyond the reach of any mortal mind, questing for something...

And then there was stillness. An expectant silence, as magic danced in the air, and his shadow stretched out for miles behind him. Harry raised his wand once more, and called out the words of summoning.

"_I call the one that would be bound_

_Across the void of time and space_

_That which was lost shall now be found_

_Come forth into your proper place!"_

With a roar like the sound of a distant ocean, all the power that had built up in the room rushed forth. Shifting, twisting, warping space and time to reach into a distance place, and otherness. Where what was, was not, where up was left and down was through, the magic of the ritual brought into existence a being that never was, and never otherwise would have been.

Gasping for breath, sweat standing stark and chill upon his skin, Harry knelt, and stared. In front of him, was a creature the likes of which he had never seen before. Vaguely snake-like, it had a long, writhing tail, a series of tiny claw-like feet, and was entirely covered in a dark, chitinous armour. Its eyeless head terminated in an oversized mouth, filled with jagged, serrated teeth – he could see it was undoubtedly capable of inflicting some serious harm, even if it was less than three feet long.

Stranger still, Harry could _feel_ it, as if it was a part of his own body. He willed it to move, and it moved; squirming across the room much more swiftly than he had expected it would be capable of. Without any mind or will of its own, it was merely an extension of his body; he could move it as easily as his own limbs, and could feel what it touched as if it was his own skin.

Beyond that, he could feel it's hunger, a gnawing craving to devour, and at the edge of his mind there was a sense of terrible potential – as if this little creature could become something enormous, something extraordinary.

Harry smiled, as he began to understand what it was that he had summoned. Then he laughed; This was perfect! He would never be alone again – this little pet would never, could never leave him, for it was a part of him.

Then the door swung open. Hermione stepped through. "Harry!" she gasped, horrified at seeing her friend gasping on the floor, apparently incapacitated with a horrifying alien chittering behind him.

"Impedimenta! Stupefy! Impedimenta!" Hermione called, casting as quickly as she could, while rushing forward to protect Harry.

"No, wait, stop!" Harry called, while his new familiar darted back and forth at Harry's command, dodging the spellfire. "It's friendly, don't hurt it!"

Slowly lowering her wand, Hermione kept a wary eye on the creature. "What is it, Harry? This isn't another one of Hagrid's, you know, _things_, is it?"

"No, this is mine. It's my familiar – I summoned it with this book..." Harry paused, looking frantically around. The book had disappeared. Deciding he had more important things to worry about than a vanishing book, Harry rushed on with his explanation. "I was just thinking about how I wished I had someone who would always stand by me, no matter what, and then this door suddenly appeared, and I went in and found a book on how to call a familiar, and I did it, and I have this!" Harry smiled broadly, gesturing at his new appendage as it scuttled forward to stand next to him.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed, "I'm so sorry! It was just, they were saying such horrible things, and the thought of facing them just got to be too much."

"It's ok" Harry said, "I understand. What changed your mind?"

"Well, when you didn't come to class, I got worried."

"I asked the portraits where you were", she continue, "And they lead me right to you. No one hardly ever thinks of them, but they see everything that goes on in Hogwarts."

"I'm hungry" Harry said abruptly. It was becoming increasingly difficult to separate the needs of himself from his familiar, and the creatures gnawing hunger was growing by the minute. "It's lunchtime, right? Let's go and get food."

"No Harry, lunch isn't for another half hour. We're, well, we're supposed to be in care of magical creatures right now." she said with a guilty grin.

Harry felt bad for a moment, knowing how hard it must have been for Hermione to skip a class, and feeling guilty for causing her discomfort. Then his guilt was washed away in waves of hunger. "Sorry, but I'm really, really hungry", Harry said, making for the door, his familiar at his side.

"Hold on Harry, you can't just walk around Hogwarts with that!" she pointed out, then asked, "And what is it, anyway?"

Harry replied with a frown, "I'm not sure, I don't think it has a name, but it feels like, _Reaper. _I'll call it that. I didn't bring my cloak though, any of you have an idea what I can do with it? If I don't feed it in the next hour or so, it's going to die."

"I thought you said YOU were hungry?" Hermione questioned.

"It's, well, it's like it's a part of me. I can feel its hunger, and move it around just by thinking it."

"That makes sense" Hermione commented, "I noticed that Fawkes always seems to know what Professor Dumbledore wanted, so probably all familiars are like that."

Seeing that Harry was looking impatiently at the door, Hermione opened her bag, and started removing books. "Here, you can help me carry these, we can put your little pet in my bag."

"Is it really going to fit?" Harry asked, seeing that her bag was barely half the size of the Reaper.

Hermione smiled. "It will fit. I had space-expanding charms cast on my bag, so I could keep all the books I needed with me."

Once the last of her books had been removed, Harry had his familiar scurry into her bag, which Hermione insisted he carry, not wanting to be so close to the creature herself.

oOoOoOo

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked.

Harry had led them a roundabout path, obviously hoping to avoid getting in trouble by being caught skipping class, but it was now clear that they were headed for neither the kitchens, nor Gryffindor tower.

"I was just thinking, I'm so hungry, I could eat a tree" Harry replied, "then I realized, Reaper here actually can eat a tree – so, we're going to the forest. There'll be plenty of food there."

Luckily, they made it to the forest without incident.

The middle of the day was hardly the best time for sneaking out, and neither of them – if they had stopped to think about it – would have expected to make it without interruption. Luck, it seems, was on their side; Or, perhaps, it was simply the dozens of extra students there for the tournaments, that kept the staff occupied and away from the windows.

Whatever the reason, the duo made it safely to the forest, where they were plunged immediately into shadows. This late in the year, the sun lay low in the sky, and the dense canopy of leaves blocked what little light there was.

Hermione pressed close to Harry's side, drawing her wand with a muttered "_Lumos_". Every little sound, every crack of a twig or rustle of leaves, startled her, and she stared into the darkness as if expecting to be jumped at any moment.

Uncaring for her wariness, or perhaps simply unaware of it, Harry set a brisk pace. Soon, they were deep in the forest, out of sight of the school, and Harry sent his familiar squirming out from the bag, and plunging deep into the wood of a nearby tree.

There was a moment of silence, and then with a tremendous grating, crunching sound, the tree began to collapse in on itself. Slowly inking to the ground, the could see the chitinous flesh of the familiar winding through the wood, its teeth ripping and boring as it shredded trunk and branch and leaf.

Within minutes, nothing remained of the tree but a scattering of chips, and a the Reaper, now nearly four feet tall, and bloated like a balloon.

A shaft of golden sunlight filtered down through the gap the tree left, a single solitary spark of day amidst the stygian gloom of the forest, illuminating the insectoid figure.

Hermione gaped at it, and it turned its eyeless head towards the two of them, as if it could sense their presence.

"Oh Merlin" she said, "What was _That_?"

"That's the Reaper", Harry replied absently. "It's job is to gather food, and then take it to the digestion pool, where we absorb it so that we can use it." His gaze unfocussed, Harry seemed to be listening to something neither of the others could hear.

In fact, he was concentrating on his familiar, feeling the sense of potential within it unfolding, giving him a greater understanding of what it was doing and why.

Hermione had now stepped away from Harry slightly, and was looking at him strangely. "Harry, how did you know that? And what's this "we" stuff?"

"I don't know how I know," Harry answered, brought back to earth by her voice. "I just, sort of feel it I guess. It's like, the Reaper doesn't have a mind, but it does have a kind of, genetic memory I guess, and being connected to me lets me understand what it is and how it works."

"It's creepy" Hermione commented. "Can we go back now? I'm sure it can't still be hungry, but it's almost lunch, and I am!"

"I can't go." Harry said.

"Well, you have to. We're breaking enough rules as it is, you don't want to get in even more trouble, do you?" Hermione asked, bossy as ever.

"No, I mean I _can't_ go back. I have a, a synaptic connection to the Reaper, and if I go more than a few dozen feet away from it, it will die."

"You can't just stay in the forest!" Hermione retorted crossly.

"You're right", Harry said. He raised his hand, and the Reaper began to twist in on itself. As they watched, it seemed to shrink and dissolved, a sickly green liquid leaking from tears that appeared in its sides. Slowly the creature shrunk down, until all that was left was a pool of softly bubbling green goo, around six feet wide, and edged around with a ring of the same chitinous flesh that the Reaper had been made of.

Surprised by the transformation, which was no less shocking for being slow, Hermione positioned herself directly in front of Harry, crossing her arms and glaring at him, wordlessly demanding an explanation.

Harry sighed, feeling much more himself now that his unnatural hunger had been sated and his Reaper's purpose fulfilled.

"It's still the Reaper, just in a new form now. See, the Reaper's are like larvae. They only live for a few days at most, and just have to survive long enough to gather enough biomatter, then they can transform into something else. This one became a digestion pool, with can absorb any biomatter dumped into it, and use the energy to spawn Reapers, which can then harvest more food, and turn into other, more useful creatures and, well, buildings."

Hermione tilted her head, a dubious expression on her face. "Buildings, huh? Like what?"

"Well," Harry began, "Like a synapse node, which acts as a sort of mental relay. Or a spawning chamber, that can produce larger creatures than the Reaper, that are capable of more things." Suddenly Harry smiled, as his mind filled with ideas and images, a plethora of fanciful creatures dancing through his imagination. "Hermione, it's amazing – these things have so much potential!"

Concentrating on his sense of the digestion pool, Harry mentally queried what it could produce now.

_Stored bio-energy: 0 units_

_Potential spawns: Reaper (1 bio-energy), Guardian (40 bio-energy)_

Rushing forward, Harry pocketed his wand and started gathering armfuls of fallen leaves and twigs, and dumping them into the pool. "Come on, help me get more food!"

"Harry, we need to get back to the school. You can't just stay out here. Look, how about we ask Hagrid to watch your, your pool, I'm sure he'd be happy to take care of it."

Not stopping his work gathering fallen branches, Harry answered her seriously, thinking fast. "No Hermione, we can't tell Hagrid. Or anyone, for that matter. They wouldn't understand – these things are just too different. Can you imagine what they would do if they found out? I mean, just look at how they treat house elves! You wouldn't want to subject a whole new species to that kind of enslavement, would you?"

Hermione glared at him again. "fine, but you are coming back with me, or I WILL tell someone."

"I can't leave the pool unattended, anything could happen to it. Once I get more than a dozen feet away, I won't be able to control it, and it will just sit there until I get back. I know I need to be back tomorrow for the first task, so I'll tell you what. You help me gather enough biomatter to spawn a guardian to protect the pool, and as soon as that's done, and then I'll go back with you."

"And you'll stay in the school then, right? Harry?"

Dropping his last load of wood in the pool (_Current bio-energy: 0.03 units_), Harry walked up to Hermione. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he looked her deeply in the eye, and spoke in the heaviest tone he could manage.

"I need to come back out here. Don't you understand? This is my chance – my opportunity to be part of something bigger. I've always wanted to be part of a family, and this is my chance. Whether it was luck or destiny that brought me the Reaper, it has given me the opportunity to do something truly incredible, and I can't let it just slip away."

His eyes locked on hers, Hermione felt herself flush under the intensity of his gaze, feeling uncomfortably aware of his closeness.

"This isn't just about me, Hermione. This is also about Voldemort. No one could beat him last time, and we both know he'll be back eventually. What's going to happen then? Don't you see? It's inevitable – I have to do this. It's my only chance, the only chance for the whole wizarding world!"

Unable to look away from the sudden intensity of his bright green eyes, Hermione felt her certainly falter in the face of the passion in his words. "Ok Harry, if, if it's really that important," Hermione answered faintly.

Together, the two of them worked hard to bring down one of the larger trees, with a combination of cutting and blasting charms. They then levitated it into the digestion pool, and Harry felt the accumulated bio-energy grow to 1.32.

"Ok then" He said, "that should do it."

"That's enough to spawn this guardian thing?" Hermione asked, expecting him to say yes. It had been a rather big tree, after all.

"No," Harry smiled at her with gentle humour, causing her to blush unaccountably. "But it's enough to spawn a new Reaper, which will bring in another tree, which will speed up the harvesting. I have to stay to supervise, though – but you should go."

A quick _tempus _spell let Hermione know that it was nearing the end of lunch, and that she had better rush to make it back in time for her Arithmancy class.

So with a nod and a quick "see you later", Hermione set out at a run for the school, hoping to avoid losing any points for lateness.

"Right then" Harry said to himself, "Time to get to work."

With a thought, he triggered the pool to begin spawning an Reaper. It took nearly a half hour to do so. The newly spawned Reaper rushed out, and set into a nearby tree, consuming it within a matter of minutes. Returning to the pool, the Reaper dived back in, dissolving into the sickly green goop. It took almost ten minutes to finish digesting the Reaper, at which point the collected bio-energy had risen to roughly 2.5 units, and Harry immediately ordered the spawning of another two Reapers.

At this rate, it would take several hours to gather enough bio-energy to product a Guardian, and Harry inevitable found his mind drifting back to what had been a constant worry of his for the last three weeks. Namely, how he was going to make it through the triwizard tournament.

Although he had often wished for some clue as to what he would be facing, somehow knowing that the first task would be dragons did not actually bring him any comfort.

By 6 PM that evening, Harry had managed to gather 60 units of bio-energy. By sending his Reapers out to the furthest range of his link with them, he had worked hard to prevent the forest from being completely stripped bare, but still the tree coverage nearby had decreased markedly. _A worry for another time,_ he thought, as he triggered the spawning of a Guardian and another Reaper.

The Guardian was large, heavily built creatures, roughly eleven feet tall and built something like a centaur, with a four enormous legs and a raised body with two arms. Unlike a centaur, however, these creatures were wrapped in layers of steel-hard chitin, their heavy limbs strong enough to arm wrestle a giant, or to punch through a thick steel plate with their razor sharp talons.

Guardians have no intelligence of their own, although they are capable of following simple orders. Left to themselves, their instinct is to stand firmly in one place, and destroy any creature that comes too close. They need to stay near to a digestion pool as well, as they require two units of bio-energy every day to maintain themselves. The pool spreads a number of tendrils for some distance around itself, with the Guardian (and any other creatures in the swarm) connect to to draw sustenance from. This allows the creature to be solid muscle and armour, without the need for the large digestion tract that provides a weak point in ordinary creatures.

It took two hours to spawn the guardian. Harry mentally ordered it to guard the pool and not kill any humans, then started his own slow way back to school, taking the Reaper he had spawned to protect himself, in case he ran into trouble on the way – the forbidden forest was hardly safe to wander about in alone, particularly after dark, and unfortunately the one Reaper was all that would fit in the bag which Hermione had left him.

Tomorrow, he would face a Dragon.


	2. Dragons, Dragons, Everywhere

Disclaimer: See chapter 1

**Chapter 2**

**Dragons, Dragons, Everywhere**

The next day dawned bright and sunny, although Harry didn't notice, his mind being rather preoccupied by the thought of his imminent death at the hands (or rather, flames, claws, and teeth) of a dragon. Despite his hours spent worrying, he still had no clue what to do, and eventually decided he would just have to wait and see what the task actually was.

When he walked down the stairs to the common room, he found Hermione pacing back and forth anxiously. "Oh, thank goodness!" She exclaimed when she saw him, "I was worried you hadn't made it back last night."

"Hey!" Harry objected, "I said I would, didn't I?"

Hermione only sighed, although Harry could practically see the tension leaking out of her. "Come on," she said, "we better get down to breakfast."

"Don't want to be late for my execution, do I?" Harry asked wryly.

"Oh Harry, I'm sure it won't be that bad. They wouldn't make you do it if it was really dangerous."

Harry rolled his eyes and ducked through the portrait hole. They travelled down to the great hall in silence. Harry was comforted by the feeling of his familiar connection, although he knew that against a dragon even the voracious hunger of his Reaper would do little good.

Lessons stopped at noon, to give the students plenty of time to get to the grounds for the task, and so Harry had to endure several hours of pointed stares, whispers, and hurled insults, which he was surprised to find didn't particularly bother him. He just repeated to himself, "I am not alone", and thought about the swarm. He already had a digestion pool, what else could his Reapers become?

Feeling as if he was pulling the answer from some half-forgotten memory, it unfolded in his mind:

_Synapse Node – cost: 80 bio-energy; generates synaptic link: 600m; overmind cognition +1_

_Hive Node – cost: 4200 bio-energy; generates synaptic link: 200m; ?; spawns: ?; overmind cognition +1; overmind tactical synapse 1200m_

_Spawning Chamber – cost: 120 bio-energy, spawns: infester, ?; generates synaptic link: 10m_

_Genetic Integration Chamber – cost: 960 bio-energy_

Well, that was interesting. Harry knew that the synaptic link was the connection he had with his swarm – he was already thinking of it as a swarm, even though it was only him, a Reaper and a Guardian. Six hundred meters would be just enough to reach from the forbidden forest to the school, so it would let him maintain connection with the swarm while he was in Hogwarts. It looked like that was what he would need to build next.

Assuming he survived the dragon, of course.

Seemingly only moments had passed, before he found himself sitting in the great hall once again. Harry suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. "Potter, the champions have to come down to the grounds now" Professor McGonagall said, "you have to get ready for the first task."

"Yeah," Harry said distantly, standing and following her out. The sound of voices around him seemed somehow muted, as if they came from a great distance, and Harry felt his stomach churning. He hadn't eaten much, but worried that what he had managed to get down would shortly be coming back up. _Maybe the dragon will find me so pathetic it won't eat me._ Harry thought, _Or maybe I'll just freeze up, and it will all be over quick_. McGonagall was saying something, but he couldn't hear what. She led him around a clump of trees to a large tent, and Harry found himself suddenly wishing he could just run away, disappear into the forest – it wouldn't be so bad to lose his magic, would it?

Suddenly, he felt a warm hand in his, and turned to see Hermione standing next to him. "You'll be OK, Harry," she said, "I believe in you."

Harry felt an abrupt jolt, and suddenly everything snapped into focus. He could hear the dull roar of the crowd waiting for him, feel the bright sun on his face, and managed a small smile for Hermione before making his way into the tent. There, he came face to pale face with Cedric Diggory, whose shocked expression clearly showed that he had not known what they were going to be facing. _Oh crap!_ Harry thought, "I'm so sorry Ced, I meant to tell you, really, I just... I forgot. I'm sorry." Cedric gave him an incredulous look, but said nothing, for which Harry was grateful.

It was nearly an hour (and three champions) later that Krum left the tent, leaving Harry alone. Luckily, this had given him enough time to make a plan, which he immediately put in motion by pulling Hermione's bag from his pocket and upending it on the ground. Commanding the Reaper to come out, he sent it burrowing underground, ordering it to follow him when he left the tent.

When Bagman called his name, Harry did his best to squash his terror down somewhere deep inside him so it wouldn't show, and slowly strolled out onto the ground. He was relieved to see that the dragon was clearly chained up, and unable to reach him as long as he didn't move into its range – which he had no intention of doing.

Harry took his time walking out, moving slowly so as to give his Reaper time to burrow into position under the dragon's nest. Drawing his wand with much dramatic flourishing, he loudly chanted an elaborate string of nonsense which he made up on the spot, finishing with a grand gesture in the direction of the golden egg.

At once, the egg disappeared. Harry, constantly able to sense the position of the Reaper, followed its path through the earth with his wand, tensing his arms and making a show of it, as if he was exerting enormous effort to keep it moving. Once the Reaper reached his feet, he had it shove the egg upward, thrusting it into the air in front of him, where he caught it in his arms.

The crowd, which had been filled with muttering and the occasional hurled insult while Harry was performing his pantomime, fell silent for a brief moment before erupting – cheers from the Gryffindors, jeers from the other three houses.

Harry held the egg above his head, so that everyone could see he had it, before turning and making his way quickly back to the tent. He needed to get the Reaper back in the bag before he was called back to the castle. It could burrow only slightly faster than a person could walk, and it would be a disaster if he was dragged off somewhere before he could retrieve it.

Unfortunately, he didn't make it to the tent, being intercepted by Madam Pomfrey before he got half way there. She dragged him off to the side, informing him in no uncertain terms that he was going to have a thorough health examination whether he wanted to or not.

Harry allowed her to drag him into the medical tent, where she spent a busy five minutes waving her wand around him before harrumphing loudly and declaring that she supposed he was maybe possibly not injured in any way. "And see that you stay that way!" she added, before heading off to tend to her other patients – Harry could see Cedric smothered in burn paste, apparently his attempt had not been so successful, although he did appear to have managed to retrieve the egg.

As soon as Madam Pomfrey was no longer looking in his direction, Hermione darted in, wrapping her arms around him in a quick hug before pulling back and staring up at him with wide eyes and launching a rapid stream of questions. "How did you do it? What spell was that? Where did you learn it? Was it from a book? Do you have the book? Can I borrow it?"

"Woah, woah," Harry said, "slow down." Harry leaned in closer, to whisper in her ear "it wasn't a spell – I just had the Reaper fetch it for me".

"Harry, that's cheating!" Hermione gasped, then clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Cheating, eh? I should have known you'd have something like that planned. Everything always comes to you." came a familiar voice, as Ron stepped through the canvas tent flap.

"Ron." Harry replied coolly, "Did you want something?"

"I was going to apologize. Facing a dragon... that's tough. I really thought for a moment that I might have been wrong, but then of course you just breeze through it, like you do everything."

"Ron," Harry started to say, before just sighing heavily and pushing past him out of the tent. He set of at a rapid pace in the direction of the forbidden forest, not even turning when he heard Hermione run to catch up with him. "That git" she said companionably. "Where are we going? You're not going back to that pool thing, are you?"

Harry glanced at her. "Yes, but not for long. I only need to stay out there long enough to gather enough bio-energy to build a synapse node, then I can direct it from the castle – should only take me a few hours."

"Ok then, a long as we're back before curfew. I've got my books with me, we can do some revision! It'll be nice and peaceful in the forest" Hermione said excitedly. Harry only rolled his eyes.

Together they headed back to Harry's digestion pool, his Reaper burrowing along beneath their feet. The instant Harry stepped into range of the node, he felt as if he a weight was lifted off his shoulders, that he hadn't even noticed he had been carrying. Feeling the connection re-established was like stepping out of the hot sun into cool shadow; the only way Harry could think to describe it, was that it felt like coming home... or what he imagined that would be like, never having lived somewhere he truly considered home.

Once there, he triggered the pool to spawn a dozen new Reapers, which he immediately sent out to gather food. A Reaper cost 1 unit of energy to make, and could be re-digested for 0.8 units, so practically speaking, when using them to gather biomatter they actually only cost 0.2 units of energy.

Harry worked until nightfall, directing his Reapers to travel as far as they could within his range. He wanted to leave as many trees standing as he could, so he didn't end up with a huge empty patch in the middle of the forest, particularly since he suspected he was close enough to the castle that it might be visible from the astronomy tower.

To Hermione's disappointment, this required all of his attention, living him little ability to practice spellwork with her. Still, she stayed with him until the sun began to set, and he finally declared he was finished. "So you have enough bio-energy for the synapse thingy?" Hermione asked him.

Harry thought for a moment, reaching out to the swarm. _Stored bio-energy: 237 units._

"Yep." Harry smiled. "I actually have enough for the synapse node, and then some!" Harry's smile fell. "But, it's going to take several hours to complete the morph, so I won't be able to do anything until it finishes. Better get started."

Harry ordered two Reapers spawned. He set one of them to morph into a synapse node, and had the other one hop back into Hermione's bag, much to her dismay. They then headed back to the castle, where Harry was entirely unsurprised to discover that no-one had missed him. When he stepped through the portrait hole to Gryffindor tower, he saw that they had apparently started a party in his honor, and raised a cheer as soon as he appeared.

He knew he should be upset at the fickleness of his so-called friends, avoiding him one day then throwing a party for him the next, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. _They are all so _small, he thought to himself, _so limited. _His thoughts were still back in the forbidden forest, and the crowded and noisy common room seemed stifling by comparison. So he plastered a smile on his face, and pushed his way through the crowd to the stairs to his dorm. Just a he was about to go up, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Tensing, he turned, to see Hermione looking at him seriously. "They don't know." she said, "they don't care. But I do."

OoOoO

Harry was pulled awake suddenly, and spent several long seconds wondering what it was that had awakened him so abruptly, before realising it was his connection to the swarm – the synapse node was live! He could sense distant digestion pool at the back of his mind, waiting for instructions. He ordered it to spawn a dozen Reapers, just in case, and then went back to sleep, satisfied that he would be alerted if anything happened.

The next day, Harry couldn't shake the smile from his face as he walked down to breakfast. His swarm was growing! He planned to spend the rest of the day directing his Reapers to gather more biomatter. The synapse node gave him a long enough range to cover a good chunk of the forest, which meant he could harvest trees without risking detection.

So, Harry coasted through class, paying very little attention to what was happening around him, despite Hermione's best efforts. As a champion, he was exempt from the end of year exams, and the staff were largely leaving him to his own devices. Except of course for Snape, who gleefully assigned him a weeks detention when he was the first to blow up his cauldron, beating Neville by a solid five minutes.

Harry didn't care. He had produced a second digestion pool at the edge of his current range, and added a synapse node and a guardian to protect it. This let him send his Reapers out through nearly the whole forest, and he was doing his best to explore it. He also grew a spawning chamber near his original digestion pool, and was disappointed to discover that he would need a genetic integration chamber before he could start producing other kinds of creature.


End file.
